Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, researchers are have created technology to tap into the creative state between sleep and consciousness, YouTube reveals how many inappropriate videos it's deleted, Aleksandr Kogan apologises for Facebook data syphoning and more.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a system designed to influence and tap into the murky, deeply creative state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness (Motherboard). Named Dormio, it takes advantage of this hypnagogic state by combining a hand-worn tracking device to monitor when the sleeper drifts off with and a Jibo social robot – which can be replaced by an app – that uses audio messages to slightly rouse the subject and suggest topics to dream about, such as a fork or a rabbit. The dreamers were then asked questions, via the robot, which produced intensely creative ideas and logical leaps, helping to generate novel ideas and, even after the event, boosting creative performance in the participants.

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YouTube has published its first transparency report, revealing that it deleted 8.3 million videos for violating its guidelines between October and December 2017 (BBC News). Of those, over six and a half million were picked up by YouTube's automated flagging system, 1.1 million by expert members of its Trusted Flagger programme and just over 400,000 came from user reports, of which YouTube received over 28 million. In an accompanying blog post, the company explained the relationship between automated and human-reported flags, saying that "Deploying machine learning actually means more people reviewing content, not fewer. Our systems rely on human review to assess whether content violates our policies."

Aleksandr Kogan, the Cambridge University researcher who developed the This is your Digital Life Facebook data syphoning survey app for Cambridge Analytica, has apologised for his actions, which led to details on 87 million Facebook users being captured for use in creating highly targeted political advertising technology (Ars Technical). Speaking to outlets including Buzzfeed News ahead of his scheduled testimony before Parliament today, Kogan also decried implications that he ever worked for or was involved with the Russian state. Speaking to The New York Times, Kogan said: "Back then, we thought it was fine. Right now, my opinion has really been changed. I think that the core idea we had – that everybody knows, and nobody cares – was wrong."

To mark the imminent arrival of Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War, LEGO has revisited an iconic piece of kit from the previous film, the Mark 44 Hulkbuster Iron Man suit (WIRED). The Hulkbuster: Ultron Edition, which clocks in at a heroic 26cm tall and nearly 1,400 pieces (it took us just shy of four hours to build - the video is mercifully shorter). And it costs £119.99. Of all the superhero LEGO kits we've built, this one feels the most technical, and appropriately so - there's a lot of quite fiddly superstructure creating volume under the smoothed-over exterior, and you'll need to pay very close attention to some of the more intricate sections.

Doom might be the Ur-epitome of violent video games, but developer JP LeBreton has used its vision of hell to create a very different, far more peaceful kind of experience (PC Gamer). Described as "a cozy Doom mod that radically repurposes any Doom level into an Animal Crossing-like nonviolent social space where each monster has a name and something to say", you're a Guardian Demon charged with helping your colleagues relax and enjoy the better things in life. You can grab the Mr. Friendly mod for free on itch.io and you'll need the open source GZdoom 3.3 and a Doom IWAD file to play it - most free user created ones, and presumably, the original shareware levels, should work perfectly.

Underfunded and squeezed to breaking point, the NHS is struggling to provide mental health care to everyone that needs it. In the UK, mental health conditions make up around 28 per cent of the total burden of disease, but they receive just 13 per cent of the total NHS budget. Meanwhile, the budget for adult social care, which provides ongoing mental health support, has been cut in real terms by 13.5 per cent in England over the last eight years.

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